British Library Journal (volume 15, number 1, spring 1989)

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British Library

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English

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British Library Journal (volume 15, 1989)

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The making of a collection: Burmese manuscripts in the British Library
(1989-05)
Herbert, Patricia
THE Burma manuscripts collection in the British Library by virtue of its size, range of material, and state of preservation constitutes the most significant collection of manuscripts to be found outside Burma. It numbers over 1,000 manuscripts, of which approximately 800 are in Oriental Collections and 350 in the India Office Library. Besides texts in Burmese, it includes Pali and Pali-Burmese nissaya texts in Burmese script (round and square script), as well as manuscripts in other languages and scripts of Burma such as Mon and Shan. Virtually every type of writing material is represented: gold, silver, and other metal plates, ivory, palm leaf, paper (both local and European), and even cloth compressed, reputedly, from discarded royal robes. In subject matter a high proportion of the collection consists of Buddhist canonical works and commentaries thereon, as is to be expected in a society where monks were the repository of learning, and responsible for its transmission and preservation through the repeated copying and explication of texts down the centuries. But other subjects represented in the collection include astrology, cosmology, language and literature, law, chronicles and inscriptions, and medicine. A particular strength of the collection is its illustrated manuscripts depicting such subjects as the life of the Buddha, the Jataka stories (of the Buddha's previous lives), and court ceremonies and entertainments.
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The great gun at Agra
(1989-05)
Losty, J. P.
IN 1974 there appeared on the London art market two bound volumes of watercolours entitled 'Views by Seeta Ram from Moorshedabad to Patna. Vol. V and 'Views by Seeta Ram from Secundra to Agra. Vol. IX'. Each of these volumes contained twenty-three large watercolours, normally on paper watermarked 'John Dickinson & Co. 1810', laid down on album pages some of which are watermarked 'J. Whatman 1811'. The paintings were recognised immediately as among the greatest achievements of Indian artists in their response to the requirements of their latest patrons, the British officials, officers and merchants of the East India Company, which by 1810 was the ruler of nearly half of India. They all display a sophisticated grasp of the contemporary English topographical style of watercolour painting and engraving with aquatint, exemplified for India by such artists as William Hodges and Thomas and William Daniell, but far transcending their prosaic models in their poetic atmosphere. Sitaram, as we shall henceforth more correctly call him, is perhaps the first Indian artist since the great era of Mughal painting in the seventeenth century to be able to suggest the light and atmosphere of India. Although his grasp of perspective and recession in the European manner can sometimes fail him, it is his mastery of distances dissolving into the heat haze and of the changing light, with particularly atmospheric effects of evening light and moonlight, which marks his stature among Indian artists.
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Remembering David Goldstein (1933-1987)
(1989-05)
Gaur, Albertine
Remembering David Goldstein (1933-1987).
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Edward William Lane and his Arabic-English 'Thesaurus'
(1989-05)
Stocks, Peter
AMONG interesting material that came to light when Oriental Collections (then Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books) moved from the British Museum building to Store Street in 1981 was a large brown paper parcel containing some notebooks. This was immediately identified as part of the work of the Arabic scholar Edward William Lane (1801-76) for his great Arabic-English Lexicon.
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Problems in the history of Chinese bindings
(1989-05)
Zhizhong, Li
THE origins and development of different binding formats form a subject of importance amongst the many aspects of the history of the Chinese book that require further research. In 1986, I published an article on the distinctions between jingzhe ['pleated sutra' or accordion binding with the first and last pages pasted onto outer boards], the 'whirlwind' binding and the 'Sanskrit' [or pothi type binding], in order to clarify the forms and dispel errors. While in London in September of that year I examined some of the manuscripts found in the cave at Dunhuang, in China, currently held in the British Library, and as I looked at them, saw that they provided further valuable evidence for the study of the evolution of the different types of Chinese bindings.
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A rebellion in Burma: the Sagaing Uprising of 1910
(1989-05)
Ashton, S. R.
THIS paper examines the British reaction to a rebellion which took place in the Sagaing district of Upper Burma in November 1910. This occurred twenty-five years after the British annexation of the kingdom of Upper Burma and the deposition of King Thibaw, the last monarch of the Konbaung dynasty. It was led by a minlaung, a pretender or would-be king. About 800 men were said to have been involved in the rebellion which took the form of an abortive attack on a police post at Myinmu, a township in the Sagaing district. The paper is based on two principal sources within the records of the India Office: firstly, the police reports of the rebellion which appear in the Confidential Home Department Proceedings of the Government of Burma; secondly, transcripts of the trial judgements which were passed by the Sessions Court and the Judicial Commissioner for Upper Burma in the cases of those who were arrested by the British and charged with being the main conspirators in the rebellion. Copies of these transcripts were forwarded to London by the Government of India and are now deposited on a Public and Judicial Department file within the India Office Records. The paper begins by examining the precedents, proceeds to describe the rebellion and the trials and concludes with a discussion of the repercussions.
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Kaempfer's album of famous sights of seventeenth-century Japan
(1989-05)
Brown, Yu-Ying
WITHIN the covers of a large and weighty album bound in western style and preserved in The (Western) Manuscript Collections of the British Library (Add. MS. 5252; bearing Sloane's old classification 'Bibliothecae Sloanianae Min. 47') are to be found three groups of curiously varied material. The first consists of a series of fifty Japanese paintings executed in brilliant colours and in gold, each on paper measuring 215 x 322 mm. (ff. 1-50). They depict famous sights of Japan enlivened by vignettes of people engaged in a variety of activities, though mostly pleasure outings or pilgrimages to shrines, temples and scenic spots. The second comprises seven Japanese figure drawings mounted on ff. 53-59, together with three padded applique pictures (ff. 68-70), now identified as oshie (pressed pictures). The third group seems to be entirely Chinese in origin. It consists of twenty-six floral and figure pictures in silk brocade or embroidery (ff. 51, 52, 60-67, 100-15). These otherwise unrelated groups of items have one thing in common. They were all smuggled out of Japan in 1692 by the German physician and traveller, Dr Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716), and have all, until recently, lain dormant, in pristine condition, among the British Museum's foundation collections.This paper seeks to introduce the first and major part of the album only, namely the remarkable set of fifty miniature paintings. These are of unique importance for all historians of Japanese art and culture as well as for specialists in 'Kaempfer studies'. The other two groups, fascinating as they are, deserve separate treatment within the realm of Far Eastern folk-art.
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The beginnings of Hebrew printing in Egypt
(1989-05)
Rowland-Smith, Diana
COMPARATIVELY little scholarly interest has been taken in Hebrew printing in the Islamic World, even though some of the Jews who fled there following their expulsion from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497 brought with them their printing presses and equipment. These refugees and other exiles who settled among them set up their workshops in Constantinople (1493), Salonika (1513), Fez (1516), Cairo (1557), Safed (circa 1577) and Damascus (1605). The reasons for the few studies on printing in the East are that these exiles were generally unable to maintain their printing activities for any length of time and usually few remains of the works that they printed have survived. In Fez, Safed, Cairo and Damascus the printing of Hebrew quickly disappeared due to the unfavourable economic conditions and probably also the influence of the adverse reaction of the Islamic World to the use of printing for religious literature. Only Constantinople, Salonika and, from 1657, Izmir succeeded in surviving as centres of Hebrew printing probably because of their relatively close ties with Western centres of influence and their greater prosperity when compared with other cities of the Ottoman Empire.
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British Library Journal (volume 15, number 1, spring 1989)

British Library Journal (volume 15, number 1, spring 1989)

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